By Khanyisa Khenese
Limise Gagayi, the founder of the popular Meal After School project, recently received the Ubuntu Award from Kingswood College.
Kingswood honoured Gagayi with the award for the tremendous impact she makes in the community of Makhanda.
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail, Gagayi said the award came as a big surprise. “The award, I never thought of it, it humbled me even more, I feel grateful and honoured. The award is written Ubuntu, which I believe doesn’t have to do with what I do because I do it out of my own free will. However, I believe my work will produce graduates one day, and bring hope, peace and harmony in my community,” she said.
Gagayi was born and bred in Gqeberha. However, when COVID-19 hit the country in 2020, she packed her bags and left Gqeberha for Makhanda.
She is currently a part-time employee at Dr Davies’ optometrist clinic.
In 2020, COVID-19 resulted in people losing their jobs and not receiving any income and that is when Gagayi started her organisation as a soup kitchen to help the community.
“My husband and I received money from a friend that is based in Port Elizabeth for food and other essentials, it was R800, and we decided to take R300 from it and start a soup kitchen,” she said.
With COVID-19 restrictions, Gagayi and her husband faced challenges when they were opening the soup kitchen as the duo were not allowed to cater without a permit. However, because other people saw their work, and what they were trying to do, they assisted.
“Few people who believed in what we were doing made sure that we were catering for our community with no hassles.”
Post the COVID-19 pandemic, the Gagayis closed the soup kitchen, and last year in July, ventured into the Meal After School project.
She said they started the organisation because “we wanted to focus more on something that could bring change in our community”.
Gagayi told Grocott’s Mail that Meal After School caters to children from school, as it aims to encourage them to go to school.
“We managed to get a grade 7 boy back to school because we knew the need is food and we used it.”
She added that because of the passion she has to change one’s life, when she saw a cry on Facebook of kids that are not attending school in Ethembeni Location, she decided to use food as a tool to fight school drop out in the location.
“We live in an area where drugs and alcohol abuse and early pregnancy are something we are used to and those cause the kids to drop out of school and MAS is here to tackle those challenges.”
